Inspiring stories and beautiful photographic portraits of sixty-four phenomenal contemporary Ethiopian women who have broken through age-old barriers to advance in their fields. Each woman tells her own story—where she came from, what challenges she faced, what helped her succeed, what inspires her, and what thoughts she has for girls and young women growing up today. They come from a broad array of fields of endeavor and range in age from their 20s to their 90s. They are phenomenal!

Temsalet is an Amharic word that means ‘shining example.’ Our hope is that these women’s stories will inspire today’s girls and young women, convincing them that they too can move beyond society’s narrow expectations for them and realize their own dreams.

Edited and compiled by Mary-Jane Wagle with photography by Aida Muluneh, Temsalet is a project of the Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations, working to advance women’s equality and women’s rights in Ethiopia, and is published by Tsehai Publishers of Los Angeles, California. In addition to the women’s stories, Temsalet features a foreword by First Lady Roman Tesfaye and an essay on women in Ethiopian history by Rita Pankhurst. NEWA benefited from the counsel of an Advisory Board of sixteen prominent women and the research, interviewing and storycrafting help of twenty volunteer university graduates.

Mary-Jane Wagle is a retired volunteer and women’s rights activist who began visiting Ethiopia and learning about its amazing women in March 2011. Trained as an urban planner, she worked in the fields of economic and social development, senior housing development, low-income housing development, and women’s reproductive health care services and advocacy in the United States before moving to Ethiopia.

Mary-Jane compiled and edited the biographies in Temsalet: Phenomenal Ethiopian Women. The subjects of this book were photographed by Aïda Muluneh.